MAYI77I ST. HELENA: ORIGIN OF LIFE 449 



pieces of the wood are frequently found in the valleys, of a 

 fine black colour, and of a hardness almost equal to iron ; 

 these, however, are almost always so short and so crooked 

 that no use has yet been made of them. Whether the tree 

 is the same as that which produces ebony on the Isle of 

 Bourbon and the adjacent islands is impossible to know, as 

 the French have not yet published any account of it. Other 

 species of trees and plants, which seem to have been origin- 

 ally natives of the island, are few in number. Insects there 

 are also a few, and one species of snail, which inhabits only 

 the tops of the highest ridges, and has probably been there 

 ever since their original creation. 



Had our stay upon the island been longer, we should in 

 all probability have discovered some more natural produc- 

 tions, but in all likelihood not many ; secluded as this rock 

 is from the rest of the world by seas of immense extent, it 

 is difficult to imagine how anything not originally created 

 in that spot could by any accident arrive at it. For my 

 part I confess I feel more wonder at finding a little snail 

 on the top of the ridges of St. Helena, than in finding people 

 upon America, or any other part of the globe. 



As the benefits of the land are so limited, the sea must 

 often be applied to by the natives of this little rock ; nor 

 is she unmindful of their necessities, for she constantly 

 supplies immense plenty, and no less variety, of fish. She 

 would indeed be culpable did she do otherwise : she never 

 met with a calamity equal to that of the earth in the general 

 deluge, and her children, moreover, have the advantage 

 of a free intercourse with all parts of the globe, habitable to 

 them, without being driven to the necessity of tempting the 

 dangers of an element unsuited to their natures ; a fatal 

 necessity under which too many even of us, lords of the 

 creation, yearly perish, and of all others through the wide 

 bounds of creation how vast a proportion must die. The 

 seed of a thistle supported by its down, the insect by its 

 weak, and the bird by its more able, wing, may tempt the 

 dangers of the sea ; but of these how many millions must 

 perish for one which arrives at the distance of twelve 



2 G 



